


For the Most Part

by ryssabeth



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos temporarily glows, M/M, No Tentacles, Radon Canyon, canon!verse, irradiated canyon's u kno, no third eye, subtle hair kink, subtle height difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-22 16:01:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/915188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryssabeth/pseuds/ryssabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Cecil," he says, "your canyon is irradiated." Which might not be news, and yet--</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the Most Part

“Cecil,” he says, and it’s the middle of the night, and the dry wind of the desert brushes against his face. At least, it’s probably just the wind. But that’s not why he’s out here, with the desert brushing its fingers over his cheeks and his nose and his eyebrows. He’s here because—well. “Your canyon is irradiated.”

Cecil simply stands there a moment, his hair mussed from sleep, his sleep-clothes just as astounding as his _other_ fashion choices—if the silhouette of those sleeves is anything to go by (though the shadow is distorted by a golden-orange-brown, just behind his eyes). And then he sighs, leaning to the left to prop himself against his door frame. “Carlos,” he says and it is reverent (which pushes heat up his neck and to his ears), “Carlos,” he repeats—and that time it’s fond. “It’s _Radon Canyon._ ”

He knew that, of course, when he went there to catalogue the radiation, to get some samples of roaches that scurry around in the sand dunes out there. He had definitely known that. “I don’t know what I expected,” he finally tells him. “But, Cecil—“

“Do you want to come in? For—like—a second. You’ve got sand in your hair.” And Cecil smiles. He smiles and Carlos could definitely say no. ( _“And I fell in love instantly,”_ because Cecil is melodramatic—but maybe Carlos gets it. The melodrama. Maybe it’s not melodrama. Nothing is as it seems, after all.

Unless it’s Radon Canyon.)

“Sure,” he ends up saying, because Cecil smiled at him, which isn’t new, but he smiles at him in ugly pajamas and with mussed hair and high cheekbones and the combination of those that _is_. “But I might get sand on your floor, or—“

“The dust mites will get it,” Cecil tells him, matter-of-factly. And Carlos is almost certain that that is not how dust mites work.

He doesn’t mention this.

Cecil steps back, all long legs and ridiculously wrapped grace, and Carlos steps forward and the humming burn beneath his skin tries to push out, reaching toward the shadowed doorway, just outside the protective circle of the streetlamp.

(And— _oh yes_ —that was the reason he was here. The _irradiated canyon_. Not the smile that could cut through glass or butter or Carlos.)

“Your—the canyon, it doesn’t work like the usual places that are _bleeding deadly radiation_ into the general outlying areas,” he explains to Cecil’s back, shedding his shoes (though he only plans to be here for a moment, he promises), scattering sand onto the hardwood entryway.

“Oh?” And Cecil’s voice lilts in interest, but, really, it’s hard to be sure if he’s paying attention. That’s always the trouble, he supposes. “Do you want some tea or coffee? Or, there’s this really interesting tomato juice but it’s a little green—it came that way—so I think it might—“

“No,” Carlos says—too quickly, regrets it, and amends, “thank you, but it’s—late. Caffeine would just, you know. Not be advisable. I’m fine. For the most part.” This—as he had expected—garnered Cecil’s attention, undivided. He turns, and yes, the light of the kitchen, just there to the left, reveals that the sleep-clothes are, in fact, ridiculous. (Puffed sleeves that cover even his long fingers and pants that would, for all intents and purposes, look better at a disco.)

“For the most part,” Cecil speaks slowly, and there is a question there, on the verge of hysteria. And—with a sigh, because this is embarrassing, this is worse than the first date, this is worse than _sciencing on the first date_ —he flicks the light switch, sweeping the entryway into darkness, the light from the kitchen bleeding into the hallway.

And—as it happens, as Carlos had been expecting to happen—a golden-orange-brown light meets with the kitchen glow, the yellow smoothness embracing it _and_ —“For the most part,” he repeats, his skin buzzing with whatever came out of Radon Canyon, trapped beneath his skin.

“Oh!” Cecil sounds surprised. “Oh.” And then he sounds like something else. “For the most part,” and Carlos’ glowing skin reflects back at him when Cecil steps forward and catches the light in his eyes.

“Exactly.”

“You did not,” Cecil’s hands come up to his face, his sleeves falling to his elbows, and his face is cast in an odd mixture of light and shadow, hollowing his cheeks and part of his nose and revealing the line of his collarbone, “take any concern for your own safety.” It isn’t a question, but Carlos answers it anyway.

“Not really,” he says. “I wasn’t sure, exactly, how toxic it would be and whether or not anything we had would be useful against it. It was easier than the alternative.” Cecil’s nose is brushing against his own, his fingers coming away from his face to hook into his belt loops, the stoop of his shoulders a subtle thing as Cecil tries to match his height.

“That was terribly, _awfully_ dangerous of you.” Carlos can’t tell if that’s a reprimand or a compliment. “And very inconsiderate of you, not consulting me. I’ll have to check you over—“ and he grins, wide and bright and catching all the light on his teeth and Carlos thinks he might _collapse—_ “to make sure you’re honestly, completely okay.”

“I glow—a little,” he says.

Cecil’s eyebrow arches, his eyes following the line of Carlos’ jaw, to his neck, to the collar of his shirt, “Hardly noteworthy,” and Cecil’s voice is serious, “you always glow.”

Something—something heavy and warm—pushes up from his chest and into his throat and Carlos _still_ isn’t used to this, won’t _ever_ be used to this (just like he’ll never get used to the way Cecil’s eyes narrow and his breath hitches when Carlos says his name and _everything_. Just everything.). “I don’t have any radiation burns.”

“I would like to be sure,” he says, his voice getting low and radio-deep, but the corners of his mouth tell a different story—a story that involves bed sheets and exploration and not-so-quiet sounds that the Sherrif’s Secret Police assures him that they would enjoy, should it ever get to that point, not that Cecil has been planning for such a day, or anything. “If you want to say—for a while—that is.”

He’d said no—he’d said no, before, on the date so long ago, or not that long ago. Time doesn’t pass the same, here, after all. But he’d had a shadow-plague to fix, and then more things came up, and—wait. Come to think of it—he’s never _been_ in Cecil’s house before, considers that this house looks very average, against what he expected, so—

“Carlos?” Cecil is looking at him and he sees his own reflection blazing in his irises.

“Yes.” And the surety he wishes he’d had before, on the dates they’ve been on, that he _didn’t_ butcher. It is with this surety that he repeats, “yes.”

Cecil’s mouth pulls wider and he moves closer, as if he cannot decide if he’d rather keep smiling or kiss him and so—

And so Carlos makes the decision for the both of them, taking Cecil’s face in his hands, warm and buzzing, perhaps from radiation, perhaps from the headiness of all this—of Cecil’s mussed hair and his tapered fingers and his thin hips but triangular shoulders—and kisses him, standing on his toes, his own irradiated skin blazing behind his closed eyelids—along with the afterimages of Cecil’s face.

He feels—because he doesn’t want to open his eyes yet, instead treasuring the texture of Cecil’s tongue, also normal—Cecil’s fingers reach for the small tail at the base of his neck and pull it loose.

And Carlos sighs against his mouth and his breath is warm and _oh_.

He thinks the hair tie hits the floor.

And then, he finds, that he doesn’t really care so much, because Cecil sighs back and they’re moving—kind of. A little.

(They keep— _hhh_ —hitting the walls, Cecil’s knee between his legs, and—and Carlos’ forehead falls to his chest for half a second, Cecil’s fingers in his hair—

And then they’re moving again, lights unnecessary, the hallways stretching into shadowed abysses, broken apart by the glow that could, maybe, probably, kill him in a couple days, or not, but it _could_ —anyway, _anyway_ right now it’s not killing him, _Cecil_ is killing him, and _so_ —)

His bedroom is dark at the corners and the walls. The only light around them is the glow that Carlos produces, warm and oddly-coloured, a little, and Cecil is on his bed (and the sheets are yellow and black and... _grey?_ Or something) and he is grinning and Carlos might just die.

(He uses that hyperbole a lot and hopes he never means it but _still_.)

“I am—“ his voice feels as if it is coming through a straw, as if it’s too big to be coming from him. “I am so happy to know you. And that I didn’t die. And that I came out of Radon Canyon unscathed—for the most part.”

Cecil only smiles wider and his hands come to his face and he _laughs_.

“I love you,” Cecil says and leans up only to pull Carlos on top of him.

And Carlos glows, maybe, hard to study when he’s got Cecil sucking on, a little bit brighter, just— _oh_ —

(He stops glowing the next day.

And does not die.

And—also—Cecil’s house is decidedly less average in the daylight. But that’s okay.

It really, really is.

He buries his face in Cecil’s pillow and feels, a little bit—and maybe this is dangerous—like he’s glowing all over again.)


End file.
